In addition to sharing some of the continuous improvement activities that have been taking place at the Clinic, we’ve gathered an all-star line-up of Keynote speakers and other healthcare organizations who are leading the way in transforming healthcare through continuous improvement activities.

Lean practitioners will recognize John’s name. Shook learned about lean management while working for Toyota for nearly 11 years in Japan and the U.S., helping it transfer production, engineering, and management systems from Japan to NUMMI and subsequently to other operations around the world.

As co-author of Learning to See John helped introduce the world to value-stream mapping. John also co-authored Kaizen Express, a bi-lingual manual of the essential concepts and tools of the Toyota Production System. In his latest book Managing to Learn, he describes the A3 management process at the heart of lean management and leadership.

On a personal note, I had the great pleasure of having John as the instructor for my Value Stream Mapping training course over 10 years ago, while working at Ford. What a treat it was to learn from the “guy who wrote the book”. His personal insights on his experience while working for Toyota are an inspiration to anyone in the Continuous Improvement community.

Dr. Patricia Gabow, recently retired CEO of Denver Health. Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr. Gabow will share her perspective on the role of Leadership in a lean transformation. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Gabow nearly two years ago when Denver Health earned the Shingo Prize Bronze Medallion for Operational Excellence for their Community Health Services division. Spending time with Dr. Gabow and her leadership team left a lasting impression. Under Dr. Gabow’s leadership and despite strong financial pressures on Denver Health, an inner-city safety net hospital, the Denver Health team improved access, improved quality, raised employee engagement, while lowering costs and remaining financially viable. Her positive attitude is contagious and she will share some of her lessons learned.

Alice will share her journey in transforming Beth Isreal Deaconess. Not satisfied with the great progress made to date, Alice has worked tirelessly to keep moving forward. I first saw Alice speak at the Shingo Prize Annual Conference in 2009 about the initial successes her team had accomplished in reducing wait times and improving patient flow. I met her several years later through our involvement with the Healthcare Value Network’s assessment team. She is an engaging speaker who has a driving desire to continuously improve.

To close out the morning’s keynote addresses, Darryl Greene and Dr. Lisa Yerian will present Cleveland Clinic’s continuous improvement journey to date and our future destination. After six years of successfully introducing and sheparding continuous improvement, Darryl and Dr. Yerian have positioned Cleveland Clinic to move beyond what we call the establishment of our base camp, to accelerating our journey to excellence. Darryl’s thoughtful, deliberate approach to improvement has been infused with Dr. Yerian’s enthusiastic and never-ending desire to learn to create a dynamic leadership duo that will continue to cement Cleveland Clinic’s role as an international leader in healthcare.

And that’s just the first 4 hours!

Panel Discussion

After lunch, the gathering will be treated to a Leadership Panel discussion with John Shook, Dr. Gabow, Alice Lee and Dr. Yerian about IHI’s Triple Aim Initiative. The panel discussion will be hosted by Greg Surtman, Director, Business Development, Corporate College.

Breakout Sessions

The afternoon will feature 15 breakout sessions to provide participants an opportunity to hear and learn directly from practitioners.

In addition to 10 presentations from Cleveland Clinic personnel, the program will include presentations from:

Day 2 of the event will provide an opportunity for participants to choose 3 of 6 Gemba visits to sites on the Cleveland Clinic main campus. Participants will have the opportunity to see U.S. News and World Report‘s leading Heart Center for the past 18 consecutive years; our Pathology and Laboratory Medicine’s new building that used lean principles in its design; our state-of-the-art Supply Distribution Center; our Emergency department that has effectively implemented a split-flow process to improve patient flow; our nursing floors where we have implemented a process to improve patient responsiveness and finally; have the opportunity to participate in a condensed version of the Cleveland Clinic Experience – a 3.5 hour enterprise alignment activity that over 42,000 Cleveland Clinic caregivers around the world have participated in.

It should be a great day and a half. We’re looking forward to seeing you!